The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 19

Wit IPfnlaMpftia Jlnquirer Section police trial, dueling scenarios in closing arguments. B2. if News in Brief B2 The Scene B2 Classified, B4. Weather, Bll. Saturday, December 14, 1996 Philadelphia Online: http:www.phillynews.com 3 QtyeIRegioe Commissioner limits police use of pepper spray Phila.

officers are being briefed on its dangers. Civil liberty groups contend it can cause deaths. II I 'r" a l'-'Va is considered more effective than chemical Mace in subduing unruly suspects. It is used by officers in 3,000 police departments nationwide. Civil liberties groups contend that the spray can constrict a suspect's lungs, possibly causing death, if the suspect is sprayed during a struggle and is then physically restrained.

In April, a suspect died in Philadelphia after being sprayed, a Police Department spokesman confirmed yesterday. The spokesman, Cpl. James Pauley, said an investigation determined that the suspect, whom he identified only by the surname Ford, died from a cocaine overdose. He said that police investigators determined that pepper spray was not a factor in the death, but that the District Attorney's Office was conducting a separate probe. Pauley said he could provide no further details of the incident, and a spokesman for District Attorney Lynne Abraham said he had no information about the death.

Nationally, civil liberties groups See PEPPER on B4 By Mark Fazlollah INQU1RKK STAFF WRITER Responding to warnings that the pepper spray wielded by Philadelphia police can be deadly, Police Commissioner Richard Neal has tightened controls on use of the debilitating spray. Officers carrying the spray, which stings the eyes and drives people to their knees in convulsive coughing, are getting briefings on its potential dangers, a Police Department spokesman said yesterday. And a recent directive from Neal instructs officers not to use the spray against nonviolent suspects, orderly crowds, children, the elderly, pregnant women or people believed to be suffering from heart or respiratory problems. Neal also said officers should closely monitor suspects who have been sprayed and bring all such suspects to hospitals. Philadelphia police began carrying three-inch black-and-red canisters of pepper spray a year ago.

They have reported using it in 98 incidents. The spray cayenne pepper mixed with water and pressurized me Philadelphia Inquirer APRIL SAUL At the lot where Aimee Willard's body was found, Gail Willard (right) holds hands with neighborhood resident Judy Anderson. Mother marks daughter's death by giving Aimee Willard's mother has started a drive to help a North Philadelphia parish. 'Security guard' robs record store He posed as a new hire at the King of Prussia shop. An ex-employee and two others have been charged.

have somebody killed, but to not find the body is really brutal." He said Willard's efforts would "allow Aimee's light to shine even though her life was snuffed out. We're very, very grateful to Gail for taking such a heroic step for our parish." The food drive will be held in conjunction with a Mass and candlelight ceremony at 7:30 p.m. Friday, the six-month anniversary of Aimee's death, at Our Lady of Charity Church, Upland Road, Brookhaven. For donors who cannot attend the Mass, gifts will also be collected at Aimee Willard's high school alma mater, the Academy of Notre Dame de Namur on Sproul Road in Villanova. Sister Marie McGuigan, Our Lady of Hope's social minister, said the parish needs food staples and warm clothing for adults and children.

Aimee Willard was last seen alive by friends early in the morning of June 20, when she See WILLARD on B3 Aimee's body was found, and she announced plans for a food and clothing drive in Aimee's memory to benefit the poor and homeless people who live in the parish. It was her family's way, she said, of thanking the community for finding Aimee and reporting their discovery to police. "My way of celebrating this year is to be with Aimee by giving," Gail Willard told reporters in the sanctuary of the church. "They could have let Aimee lie there, but they didn't. She was returned that same day." Willard said that the hours of not knowing what had happened to her daughter were torture, but that once they had her body, there was some peace.

"I knew the look on her face was not that of fear, and I could go to bed," she said. The rector of Our Lady of Hope, the Rev. Edward Hallinan, said that Willard's gratitude to the community was heartfelt. "You don't know what it is to By Suzanne Gordon INQUIRER STAFF WRITER At the edge of an empty lot in North Philadelphia, where the body of Aimee Willard was found nearly six months ago, two mothers embraced. Yesterday, moments after Gail Willard planted a white cross in the spot where "her daughter's beaten body had been discovered by local children, she was met by neighborhood resident Judy Anderson and her young daughter, Anna, who were walking down the street.

"I'm on the case. I come by here every day," said Anderson, weeping as she clutched Willard. "1 have two daughters. It could have been either of them." Aimee Willard, 22, a star athlete at George Mason University in Fairfax, and a resident of Brookhaven, Delaware County, was killed June 20 and her body dumped in the lot at 16th Street and Indiana Avenue. Though no killer has been found, State Po- i are not releasing, didn't think any-; thing was wrong until his new "employee" pointed a gun at him and.

demanded he empty the safe, police said. Six hours after the robber bound the manager's ankles and wrists with duct tape and made off with more than $28,000 in cash, police arrested Antoine Carter, 23, of the 5800 block of Christian Street, Philadelphia, and charged him with robbery, theft, and related offenses. The manager was the only one in the store with the robber. No one was injured. See ROBBERY on B4 By Christian Davenport INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT The manager of the Tower Records store in King of Prussia, which employs plainclothes security guards, was expecting a new one to show up for work Thursday morning, police said.

So when a man in jeans approached him as he was opening the store in the DeKalb Shopping Plaza shortly after 8 a.m. and said he was the new guard, the manager let him in without thinking twice, Upper Merion police said. The manager, whose name police Aimee Willard lice Capt. Thomas LaCrosse, who is heading the investigation, said this week that authorities are continuing to follow leads and are still optimistic. Yesterday, Gail Willard visited Our Lady of Hope, a Roman Catholic parish at 19th and Tioga Streets not far from where 3 charged in menorah smashing Students protest at N.J.

campus fr -i i Xf 'i 5 i. By Laty McCrary and Richard V. Sahatini INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS Three teenagers who told police they were "out to damage some Richard Daniel Hudson, 18, of the 100 block of Signal Hill Road in nearby Holland, as one of those arrested. The other two are 17-year-old juveniles, and Ruben They" fear that Rowan I If' v'i I-- will close its Camden branch. The campus' The menorah smashing brought a quick reaction from residents on the street and throughout the neighborhood, and menorahs were placed in windows of house after house.

"All three are charged specifically with willfully, deliberately smashing the front window It is clear they targeted this home," Rubenstein said. Rubenstein said one of the 17-year-olds lives in the Newtown Grant development where the vandalism occurred. A woman who answered the door at Hudson's home, decorated for See VANDALISM on B3 stein and Duffy declined to identify them. Rubenstein said the three were arrested at Council Rock High The suspects are seniors at Council Rock High School. thing were arrested yesterday and charged with smashing a window and menorah at the home of a Jewish family early last Sunday in Newtown Township, Bucks County, au (future is being studied.

7 By Eric Dyer and Edward Colimore FOR THE INQUIRER School yesterday morning, where they are seniors, and were charged with ethnic intimidation, criminal mischief, loitering and prowling at night, and possession of instruments of crime. thorities said. Bucks County District Attorney Alan Rubenstein and Newtown Township Police Chief Martin Duffy, at a news conference, identified CAMDEN More than 75 sign- Associated Press BOB OLENDER The aluminum bats allegedly used by the teenagers to smash the menorah are held by Newtown Township Police Chief Martin Duffy. (hiSrrying students picketed the Camden camous of Rowan College yes terday; protesting a college review they felt could lead to the closure of the campus. Rowan officials have been reviewing the five-year college master Grinches mar foster children's holiday celebration.

Car thieves and bureaucracy: A dismal Christmas siory plan and are studying the viability ot 'the Camden campus. Students I yesterday said they hoped to persuade college officials that Rowan's in the city must continue. One of the demonstrators, Joe Bonson, 30, an East Camden resi-' dent and Rowan senior, said many local residents need a campus in the "We have families and jobs here but no transportation to get to the campus" in Glassboro, said for herself. "I have school, I have work. They're not making it very easy," Cloud said yesterday, adding that she also has no car.

Davida Bolger, office supervisor at Infant and Youth Care, said yesterday that the more than 150 children at the party would eventually get their presents, purchased by the agency. Most of the goodies were not locked in Cloud's trunk. They'd been stashed safely away, but there weren't enough to go around See STOLEN on B3 on her car. Cloud, who attends the University of Pennsylvania and is an intern at Infant and Youth Care, had one question for the police: Are the gifts still in the trunk? Remember where we live, now land of lawsuits. Police refused to pop the trunk and answer her question.

"If we go over and crowbar it, then we're liable" for any damage, an officer explained. Cloud has been too busy to get to the impoundment lot on Delaware Avenue to check showed up for the bash, held at Mount Moriah Pentecostal Holiness Church in West Oak Lane. But there were no presents spread beneath the tree, and the children went home with the most meager of gifts one thin pencil each. That wasn't the end of it. Police later found the missing Bonneville.

It was totaled. They towed it to an impoundment lot and called owner Kelly Cloud who, of course, is a good-hearted, hardworking college student with no insurance '(J By Lea Sitton INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Those few bad eggs always stink things up for the rest of us. Several days before a Christmas party for foster children on Thursday, bad guys stole an '89 Pontiac Bonneville off the streets of West Philadelphia. Locked in the trunk were presents for about 20 children. So when Thursday came, Santa was at the party, sponsored by Infant and Youth Care, a foster-care agency.

And a puppet troupe 1 Bouson, a sociology major. "This is convenient and accessible. If they "Close this campus, many people won't be able to go to college." demonstrator. Due Tran, See ROWAN on B3.